When I leave to work in the morning, my tranny will have a hard shift or slip when shifting from 2nd to3rd. Once the truck is nice and warmed up, shifts no problem. I drive a 2000 dakota, 3.9 motor, extended cab 2wd 84000miles. Can anyone please give me some ideas or advise before I take it to the dealer and have to empty my wallet.
Also, could some one what type of trans I have?
Thanks in advance.

 

welcome to DF...

take it in for a servicing and tell the tech what it's doing. he will most likely want to adjust the bands on it as they are probably a tad bit loose.

there is a FSM for a 2001 Dak stickied at the top IIRC that you can download, it'll tell you what tranny you have and give you alot of info on your truck. the differences between a 2000 & 2001 would be minimal if any.

 

My guess is 42re (The junk tranny) Thats what they put behind most of the 3.9's

 

moe in wichita ks. sounds like a cloged filter. its not to hardof job to do yourself. but arm yourself with lots of info first, you can never have to much info or addvice. be ready to adjust the bands, if you dont want to adjust the bands yourself find a good shop. some times the best shop in town is the oldest one. heres a trick alot of people may not like. put two qts of rear end grease in the trany after its been serviced, just have the trany guy put it in. he may not like it, but somehow get it in. if you do it your self use ant-size compund on the screws on the filter and the pan bolts, also dont over tighten them as they go in allmuim. i know i cant spell

 

Before you step foot into a dealer, make sure the obvious points are taken care of first. What is the tranny fluid level? Is the fluid clean or dirty? I would drop the tranny pan and change the filter/fluid and save yourself some money before taking it to a dealer. Keep in mind that 90% of transmission problems are fluid related.

 

Also, don't forget if you are getting the bands done, get someone to do it. The manual adjustments aren't all that great.

Chris

 

Thanks for all the adivse. But if you dont mind, what is IIRC?

 

IIRC= if I remember correctly


but I would change the tranny fluid and get the bands tightend.

 

did you download the manual? if you go over into the 2nd gen Ram forum or the CTD ram forum there is a DIY link that has a manual to older transmissions. could help explain some things before going any further.

 

LOL, All I know is Id Rather have someone do the tranny work. Iv removed the Pan one too many times on my dakota lol.